The large Indian Ocean island nation of Madagascar, off southeast Africa, is the location where a two-meter-long piece of an aircraft wing washed ashore, with suspicions immediately turning to missing MH370.

The disappearance of the Malaysian airlines Boeing 777, flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014, generated an international furor and a massive search effort. Then out of the blue a portion of an aircraft was located, raising hopes that the object did, indeed, belong to the missing jetliner. If the object is from the missing plane then the chances of locating the fuselage and “black boxes” nearby are very high.

French air transport officials were headed to the overseas territory of Reunion island for a further investigation of the wider maritime region.